Want to Work in the Liberty Movement? The 7 Data Points You Need to Know.

This will shock no one to hear, but I’m a bit of a dork – A data dork, if you want to get specific. Give me a glass of red wine and a database and I could be happy for hours. Yes, I am the most fun at parties.

I love digging into the numbers, creating reports, and discovering new things. Specifically, I dork out on understanding what the numbers in Talent Market’s database are telling us and how we can use this data to help our clients and candidates.

So, at the end of last year, I reviewed dozens of reports about our searches, candidates, and clients from our humble beginnings to 2009 all the way through the Great Dumpster Fire of 2020.

What I learned is useful not only for nonprofit organizations, but also for individuals seeking their dream job in the liberty movement.

Here are the seven things our data tell us about hiring in the free-market space that might be useful to you!

1. Fundraising jobs win AGAIN. If I asked you what you thought our most common talent need was, you might have guessed policy. After all, we work in the public policy sphere! Yet, policy jobs account for only 12% of our placements. As much as we love a good policy job, you know what really keeps us up at night? It’s finding fundraising talent for the bazillion development openings we have! In fact, nearly a third of our placements are in fundraising, followed by about a fifth in communications and media. This is good for nonprofits to know, as it explains why it’s always tough to find a good fundraiser. And this is also useful for job seekers, especially recent graduates contemplating their future career paths. If you aren’t sure what field to go into and you want to be madly employable, might I suggest fundraising?

2. The majority (roughly 66%) of the candidates we place hail from outside the free-market nonprofit sector. Wow, right? Lest anyone think we’re just shuffling talent from one free-market nonprofit to another, the numbers tell us otherwise! And this is fantastic news for those of you toiling away in the private sector hoping to land your dream job in the free-market world. It can happen and the data illustrate that point!

3. The pandemic dramatically increased our clients’ willingness to hire virtually. You probably don’t need to see our data to know this is true; you can just look at the dining room table you converted to a desk back in March of 2020 and your insurmountable list of downloaded podcast episodes you used to consume during your daily commute. But the data are fascinating nonetheless. Pre-pandemic, only 36% of our searches allowed for virtual work. In 2020 it jumped to 60%!!! And right now nearly 70% of our current openings have a virtual option!  This is a great sign for those of you who can’t relocate or want to work virtually. We’ll see if this trend holds!

4. Hiring virtually means doubling your candidate pool! On average, our virtual opportunities attract twice the number of candidates that our in-office opportunities attract. Amazing!! So, if your nonprofit is struggling to find talent, going virtual is a good first step to expanding the talent pool. The bar chart says it all!

5. More than a third of the candidates we’ve placed have participated in a liberty-oriented program (such as an internship) or engaged with a liberty-oriented networking organization. It’s hard to know exactly what this represents. Does this mean our clients are drawn to those who have a demonstrated passion for liberty? Does this represent candidates’ dedication to the cause? Or does it mean something else entirely? In any case, I suspect it can’t hurt to get involved in the liberty world early and often!

6. Personal referrals, along with Talent Market’s recruiting efforts, are our biggest source of top talent. Stated another way, while we love job boards, LinkedIn, and even Instagram, 73% of the placements we make come to us via our recruiting efforts and word of mouth. This is why we are so very grateful every time we receive a personal referral. Please keep them coming!

7. Throughout our 12 year history, 44% of our placements were located outside the Beltway (and nearly 30% were virtual!). That’s great news for those of you who want to advance liberty but don’t want to or can’t live in our nation’s capital